Re food... I don't support the "let the kids eat what they want when they want" attitude. In our experience, that's just a fast track to grazing on junk food all day. We don't make them eat every scrap on their plate, but there are set times to eat and we make it very clear that there isn't going to be any more food later. It doesn't always work - particularly with the younger one - I'm not going to be just ready to make them food at a whim and I don't want them eating pre made food all the time.

They're both getting into cooking now, which is great. Too young to do it by themselves, but I'm teaching them food\oven\knife safety right now with spaghetti and eggs. Going to move on to bread making soon.

Last edited by Tom on Mon Jun 18, 2018 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I wouldn't push the solids too much at 8 months. That's kind of a transition time (at least in my experience). If I recall at that age we were just putting a bunch of safe to eat foods in front of them and letting them taste and play with them.

Yeah, from my limited experience and having gone through that phase about a half year ago, I would say that it's perfectly fine to purée everything and keep trying solids occasionally to see if there is interest but not forcing it. I would be more focussed on exposing the baby to different tastes and trying to promote variety in whatever format they can deal with at the moment.

By solids I mean every form of food that is not boobie.Finnish health care system is weird with their recommendations. One year the parents are supposed to start feeding solids at this point, then some year they are supposed to breast feed until the baby turns 18 years or something. We are told that we should try to feed five meals per day, not including breast feeding and try to make the meals her primary source of food. It's bit difficult if she doesn't eat.

Ah, sorry! Yeah, starting with solid foods from six months on seems about right. The health benefits of breastfeeding are mostly within those first six months, after that they need people food.

We bought jars of baby food and tried out everything, some stuff went over well, some didn't. Fruits were always popular. We made our own puréed stuff and froze it in icecube trays too, took one cube out at a time and thawed and warmed them up.

Are you trying to substitute the food for nursing? Like offering a meal instead of the breast when the baby is hungry? At some point that transition has to happen.

Our little dude was also over the babyfood fast and into real people food. He had a number of teeth at eight months. If you are only doing puréed stuff, trying offering anything (I believe discounting individual sensitivities, everything is safe except honey). Again you might already be doing this.

Hang in there! Like Tom said, some days the delivery has to be very animated and maybe some days all of that is not necessary.

It's easy to lose your patience, don't beat yourself up. I've found it's very healthy to just see it at base as a job (a very important one) and be dispassionate and just slog through it, detach a little inside if you need to. You will still be able to switch into an emotionally involved mode often when you're feeling it. That was a good realisation for me: "this is not about how it feels to me, I just have to do a good job". That's kind of hard in its own way, but it frees you up to at least not be frustrated by your own frustration, if you get me. Maybe you are already thinking this way.

jimmy spako wrote:It's easy to lose your patience, don't beat yourself up. I've found it's very healthy to just see it at base as a job (a very important one) and be dispassionate and just slog through it, detach a little inside if you need to. You will still be able to switch into an emotionally involved mode often when you're feeling it. That was a good realisation for me: "this is not about how it feels to me, I just have to do a good job". That's kind of hard in its own way, but it frees you up to at least not be frustrated by your own frustration, if you get me. Maybe you are already thinking this way.

That's a good advice! In a way I'm trying to do that already and most of the time I'm succeeding, but today and yesterday I wasn't doing a really good job with keeping my frustration at bay. And when you get your bearings you feel like an idiot when the little thing is smiling and being innocent.

She does eat sometimes. Maybe it's just the teething thing now. She is healthy, sleeps well, poops okay (although she hasn't pooped a real solid one in a while).

jimmy spako wrote:It's easy to lose your patience, don't beat yourself up. I've found it's very healthy to just see it at base as a job (a very important one) and be dispassionate and just slog through it, detach a little inside if you need to. You will still be able to switch into an emotionally involved mode often when you're feeling it. That was a good realisation for me: "this is not about how it feels to me, I just have to do a good job". That's kind of hard in its own way, but it frees you up to at least not be frustrated by your own frustration, if you get me. Maybe you are already thinking this way.

Can't be a perfect parent all the time. It's a job that requires infinite patience.

Frustration stems from desire so it's generally when you want something that you get angry. For instance trying to put a restless child to bed can be interminable if you are impatient to get on with doing something else, but if there's nowhere you'd rather be, it's fine. Spacing out is a skill: use it.

It's a job that's going to take up pretty much all of your time but only for a short while and then never again, so I just think ah, fuck everything else. It's not for long.

I used to buy all the different kinds of baby foods, of which there are many. Some of them were a hit, some of them were a big fail. Sometimes preferences would abruptly change. If one didn't work I'd try something else. I kept all the little jars too; they're great for holding screws and things like that. You'll never have a better opportunity to collect lots of little jars.

Before the baby food we started with baby rice, which is a powder you mix in with baby's milk to make a sort of milk-flavoured baby porridge. You can make as much or as little as you want at a time and I started out by just making a few spoonfuls up in the baby bottle cap and giving that before the milk. Later on started mixing baby food in with the baby rice and then baby food on its own.

And rusks of course when the teeth come in. Man this all seems a long time ago already. You won't believe how much mess can come out of a rusk.

I know they've been mentioned before but these things are the shit:Take it with you everywhere you go and baby can just eat what your eating (assuming you eat healthy food). I don't think we ever purchased baby food.

Haha, that food mill with the little blue pale looks like something a baby construction worker would have. We got one of those fancy Beaba or whatever their called steamers\choppers. That plus a ice cube tray thing is a perfect snack for a teething kid. Gives them something cold to suck on and you can mix fruity stuff with veggies and gradually introduce. Links below. That thing is totally great. I still use it for making dips and sauces. So good.

rgauss wrote:I know they've been mentioned before but these things are the shit:Take it with you everywhere you go and baby can just eat what your eating (assuming you eat healthy food). I don't think we ever purchased baby food.

Or you could just baby bird it to them and not carry around the hardware

Cherish those little fuckers. Cherish them with your whole heart. And more if possible.

We had a little scare beginning of year, Luna had to stay in the hospital for 3 weeks, she had a small heart issue. Well, she still does but the doc in charge is saying that she's getting better. She had a big case of arrhythmia during a regular checkup before a flu shot and she was rushed to the hospital. She had to stay there until all tests were made and the proper medication would be administered and she checked out without any side effects. It's little to say that we were scared, but you have to roll with the punch and make the best out of it, being scared or not. The kid needs you to be there for them, the kid does not need your tears but your laughs. Anyway.

She's fluent in American, although we never spoke with her the language. She adores those CookieSwirlC videos on YouTube and she sometimes scares me that they wont let her in school next year because she prefers English to Croatian.